Golden Week? What is that?! I have received this question too many times to count from friends and family so I am going to explain it one last time, right here in writing. Golden Week is the nickname for a set of 4 holidays within a 1-week span in Japan. It starts with 昭和の日 (Showa-no-hi: Showa Day) which is a celebration of the birthday of the former Emperor Showa on April 29th which was a Wednesday this year. The Thursday and Friday, while not holidays were either simply days that businesses closed or many people took their “holiday” days (vacation). Sunday May 3 was Kenpo kinenbi, Constitution Day in English, commemorating the day in 1947 that the new postwar constitution was put into place. Because it fell on a Sunday, it was “celebrated” by businesses being closed on Wednesday. Then comes May 4th (may the forth be with you, I digress) which in Japan is known as みどりの日 (midori-no-hi: Green Day). The green stands for nature but I don’t personally know anyone that actually does anything to celebrate nature on this day. And lastly is 子供の日 (kodomo-no-hi: Children’s day) on May 5th when families make 鯉のぼり (koinobori: carp streamers) and hang them out for good luck. So when my mentor told me I could take two holiday days that Thursday and Friday and have a whole 8 days off work, I signed up for those holidays ASAP and started looking for a flight to Singapore! Because Singapore was just a holiday, you will have to ask me about all the crazy things I did there some other time. I will say that while I only spent two days there, it was quite an awesome experience and I can’t wait to return and visit with friends again. Here are a few photos though to put up with all that holiday explanation above!

I came back to Tokyo on Saturday of Golden Week and was invited to go to the Ryogoku Festival on Sunday with my great aunt’s brother, Homei-san! So I met him in Ryogoku, got snapped in a few pictures with some Sumo wrestlers, saw the inside of kokugikan (the sumo arena), ate sumo wrestler soup, went to a temple and a park, and soaked up the awesome festival-ness going on in preparation for the sumo tournament that was starting soon.

On Monday, Tamura-senpai invited us all to hang out, so we went to Hakone and saw some great views! Hahaha (see photos below). But we got to the port on the lake too late to ride the pirate ferry we were planning on taking. So after enjoying the ropeway and a traffic jam in a bus, we grabbed a train to Yokohama and went to Chinatown for dinner! It was the typical Chinese lazy susan table set-up and we ate a lot of things, including jellyfish and peking duck!

On Tuesday I relaxed until I had an interview for a job back home and then on Wednesday I went to the beach with my Japanese friend! It was a great way to prepare for going back to work, except for the part where I burnt my shins while reading/napping. Sorry, I was relaxing too hard to remember to take any photos. And that is how I spent my Golden Week. It was quite fun and as usual with holidays, I really didn’t want to go back to work when I was done! That’s all for now folks! Until next time!またね